Ease of telling the time can often be of secondary concern for the most complex, creative and expensive timepieces.
In fact, it can feel like there is an inverse correlation between price and practicality when it comes to haute horlogerie.
Hublot’s latest collaboration with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is a fine example.
Hour and minute hands play second string at the centre of a dial that is dominated by a flying tourbillon while the eye is drawn to the 12 petals of a clear crystal flower — Murakami’s signature motif — that gives the case its striking shape.
Hublot has installed a manufacture central flying tourbillon movement, the HUB9015, which has a full week’s power reserve.
It is manually wound using a powered key that slots into the watch’s crown and tightens the mainspring using 100 carefully controlled turns.
Only 50 of the MP-15 are being made.
“Our mission is not to fulfil their expectations, but to surpass them,” says Ricardo Guadalupe, Hublot CEO.
“Up until now, my work has focused on color. It was a really exciting challenge to start a whole new chapter focusing on absolute transparency. The forms and volumes are perceived completely differently. With Hublot, we were able to preserve the individuality of my floral motif, but with a unique and different identity which was purer and perfectly in tune with Hublot’s mechanical universe. I’m very proud of the result,” the artist Mr Murakami describes.
The 42mm watch is worn on a transparent rubber strap and is water resistant to 30 meters.
It is on sale for $316,000.
